I was reading this post from The Heron Clan recently. Its a post about ED and how she and her family deal with it. Swan received some ‘wow I’m glad you said that’ comments. This is a little of her response to those comments:
“When this {sic: D/s} is about the way we live, and not just about the sex, then the changes that life brings to us sexually is part of the business of being alive. Swan”
This has been a difficult hurdle in my life. My husband has to take medications that have caused ED. He’s one of those many men who found that taking an ED medication for a time, reduced the issue and there are times when he has no trouble at all with erection…times of very low stress and extremely high arousal. Truthfully, he likes to play waaay harder than I do. He’d love to have a person with no play limits and an amazingly high threshold for pain. When I’m in my ‘hurt me bad’ moods, he’s all hard cock. It is intensely frustrating to me when I’m in that mood and he’s too busy to do anything about it. Its intensely frustrating to us both really.
I’ve struggled with this alot. I have gone through feeling unattractive to him. The truth is he’s always a bit nervous of scaring me…he really is intense about how he wants to play…and in truth he’s scared the crap out of me a number of times in the heat of passion. That fear of scaring me again effects his erectile quality…because the last thing he wants to do is scare me frigid for a week. The harder he can play kinky, the harder he gets.
Only trouble is, I yearn for a softer hand than he wants to give about 75% of the time. So we find ourselves incompatible alot. When his erectile quality goes down, he cannot reach my sweet spot. He’s not long enough to then. We can still have intercourse. It still feels good, but I’m aging and if I’m not orgasming intensely…as I do when he’s getting my sweet spot, then I suffer a great deal from chaffing because I’m just not producing enough lubrication. *sighs…* We use lube…but its just not enough unless I use something with silicone in it and I gotta tell you that makes me really nervous-putting silicone inside my body in a liquid form. Other types of lube are fine for sex when there’s no ED issues going on. But they aren’t enough when there is.
So in the past year and half, we’ve had challenges with our sex life…
I have felt for many years now that sex is a form of intimacy that I need. Its not a ‘gee, that’s mighty nice to have dear…’ This is a driving need in me. I need that energy connection to his body that happens when insertion is shared. My body literally craves intercourse for the sensation of it too. There are times when I want to hit a man for bothering me with foreplay…and when I want to hit him again cause he didn’t give me intercourse for long enough…I’m not kidding about the multiple hours thing. It doesn’t help any that these same medications that have produced this difficulty with ED in moments of decreased excitement have caused him to be less emotional and spiritual with me…another sort of connection that I really need from my partner.
So…this has been an agony for me at times….sometimes leaving me feeling aggressive enough to want something like the kind of sex that my husband really likes. That’s worked out well…but then when the mood passes, I’m back to the same issue.
I’ve been focusing alot on all the emotions that go with all this, because there’s not much to do about this really that we’ve not already done. I’ve talked about them alot here in non specific ways…but never really said exactly what was the challenge in my marriage that makes us so incompatible at times. Why it’s not really helpful to us to have a full blown D/s relationship…and truthfully, this is only half the picture. I’ve focused on the emotions because letting the grieving I feel about this situation unfold until its done seems the only thing to do about it. I can’t do much to change who we each are. I can’t do anything to change his need for the medication. I can’t change how it feels to have ED take away the juicy in our marriage.
And I’m not even mentioning all the emotions he has about this. We both feel sad alot.
I am deeply relieved that we have had these improvements so that he doesn’t actually have to have the ED medications to have sex and that we’ve managed to find ways to really enjoy each other still. Its not the same, but its a nourishing exchange for us both. I just so miss the juiciness that was between us. We could share an intensity on a more vanilla level before these medications, despite the disparity about the ways we each need/like to play in terms of kink. That erotic-emotional-spiritual juiciness kept us so very close…and his way…not my way is what really makes him hard and what makes him last really hard for a long time. We used to have sex for three or four hours a day…and I’m not talking about foreplay.
We are having to find other ways to feel close, like sharing spanking and masturbation games together or way shorter intercourse that’s wonderfully intense; though very short for my needs. We are shifting our focus away from sex into things that are more gently domestic D/s, rather than sexual…which is where things used to be focused with our D/s- sex. We’ve had to face the fact that our needs are not going to be completely met in each other. I’ve had to face the fact that he needs a sexual partner who has less limits about kink play and pain than I have. I need a man who can tickle my sweet spot a long time now and then…I need a gentler sort of Domination than he’s really wired to give me. We make each other nervous…because I can feel that beast roiling in him, clawing to get out at me. And he can too…and he can feel my unease sometimes (though most of the time its only in his imagination that its any trouble to me at all) and it makes the whole damned ED issue worse for both of us. He’s working on that…Considering its been an issue between us since the beginning of our marriage, its not easy for him. Erection is effected by some autonomic functions in the body. They are already responding to unconscious stressors before he’s even aware of the emotions going on for him…and having the anxiety of not being able to please me then come into the picture on top of the one he’s already struggling with…*sighs…* Some things are just not easy.
What’s hard about this too is this kinky thing we do is such a part of each of our natures. It is who we are. No. We are not just composed of actions, thoughts and feelings centered on sex…but we are Dominant and submissive by nature and all that this means. We are also two halves of a whole in so many ways…He is home to me emotionally…but we are still ill suited for D/s. It is very painful to me to see my perfect mate is not my perfect Mate. It always has been painful, ever since we realized this many years ago now. But the ability to have hot souped up vanilla sex kept things a joy between us. The ability to share tantra kept things a joy between us. The medications have robbed us of much of our ability to share these things with each other, even the latter thing. It dulls his emotions and spiritual sense of himself…Anyway, this has forced us to redefine our 
marriage and how we exchange and express love with each other. It leaves us both feeling lonely in many ways though, because its not getting us to the depth we once and might otherwise share and neither of us really know how to find such depth and pleasure together again from another route. What we have is very good. Very loving and wonderful. Its not what it was. I feel grief about that.
Yet I am becoming more content as time passes despite this sadness, because ‘this is the way we live…not just the way we have sex’. We are focusing on what’s good and what works for us…We are focusing on things we can control and working to make them better…not on the parts that aren’t changeable. And we are each trying to find ways to get our needs met as individuals while still nurturing our beautiful marriage. That’s both tantric lifestyle and mature D/s lifestyle.
But I carry alot of sadness these days…and I’d like to not do that anymore. Time…time heals all they say. I am counting on that.
June 27, 2008 at 7:39 am
Shannee, what can I say, swan is a wise woman, I read her daily but rarely comment.
When Mel died it took me a long time to realise that I needed to refocus my life and energies.
The energies that flowed between me and Mel on this level had to be redefined and redirected so my efforts go largely into the work of my clinic.
Sexual energy can be redirected though not easily.
To try and answer Olivia, there are stages in the knowing that I wrote about, there must be some awareness of the value you give yourself, if you thought that you were worthless what would you be offering your partner.
The value that I am talking about has a tie in with self esteem.
In a fully mature relationship each would be confident of their self worth.
Couples often grow into this, there may be some unbalance, if there is toi great an inbalance the relationship will fail.
I hope that this helps.
Love and warm hugs,
Paul.
Hello Paul! I hope you are having a terrific day. Thanks for the remarks for Olivia. I’m sure they will be helpful to her. I could add this bit too. Its a good bit of writing about the true source of self esteem. I thought this was a terrific explanation for the “I AM” stuff.
I’ve been kind of thinking about your remarks about sexual energy ever since I read your comment this morning. It is true that I can use my sexual energy in other ways. Its very difficult for more than a few moments for a specific goal or purpose..but ongoing? The body is hardwired to direct sexual energy in certain channels and emotionally and that’s not to mention if there’s someone you love, that’s where the sexual energy will want to focus naturally.
I think that’s a significant source of much of my grief. That its preferred locus is frustrated so much. Finding another locus is a tricky proposition because sexual energy is all entwined with emotional and spiritual energy with me. They feel all of one thing. That has some obvious emotional risks.
I just try not to think about it too much beyond an occasional cathartic expression like this. It is a bundle of stuff that seems unresolvable for the most part. Its stuff that I take to my summer ceremony and hope that miracles occur. Not much else to do with it that I know about.
I am really glad that you have the legacy of the clinic to invest yourself in…Its a good purpose to put your life to. ((hugs))
We may have more thunderstorms today. I’m looking forward to them.
June 27, 2008 at 10:33 am
Me too, counting on time that is.
I have some similar issues in my marriage and it’s so very complex because it’s not just physical, it’s all the emotional stuff that goes along with it. I’ve yet to narrow it down as well as you did here but reading your words gave me some definite “ah-hahs” about what’s been going on at home.
I don’t think that my husband and I will ever be very compatible in a D/s way but we are really trying to find ways to connect. Being able to have wonderful vanilla sex would help but there are limits on that too. (I’m one of those hours and hours people myself). I don’t know that we were ever both on the same page libido wise but his diabetes has profoundly affected our sex-life. That and having our beautiful daughter. :)
I’m hoping that the majority of our needs can be met in one another and that some agreement can be met to meet the “other” needs in a way that will bring something to our marriage rather than take away from it.
Sometimes I want to give up and just start over somewhere else, but he’s not a bad man, he’s a very good man at heart and that does count for a lot. He’s a good daddy too….and I don’t want to break up our family just because I have needs.
Hello! ((hugs)) Sweet friend, I have the feeling that you and your good husband have alot of good times ahead of you. And I think you could use the affirmation of how centered you seem these days. Despite the very real challenges in your life at the moment, you are far more solid inside than you realize. *smoochies*
June 27, 2008 at 10:53 am
I had similar issues in my last marriage. My husband had ED long before he was diagnosed with hbp and diabetes. Trouble was, he didn’t want to face it. He preferred to work at masturbating alone while I was at work and then later, quietly stepping out to satisfy his need, but not allowing me the same privilege…..
I am glad that you have both been able to acknowledge what is and what can’t be; and work together to cultivate what can be. Because the alternative sucks….
((soft hugs and cheeky kisses))
Hey there Rosa! I’m glad to hear from you. ((big hugs)) It is hard when you can see that things could be different ‘if only’ isn’t it? Always a tough one. I’m glad that life has now taken you to paradise and spankings. *grins*